The education of the African child: any hope in sight?
Africa is the mother of civilization. It is the center and origin of modern technology, but today Africa has been left behind and far behind in development.
Poverty is a major problem in African development, because money has a very important role to play. Education is a comprehensive process through which the individual’s mental and physical faculties are developed, making him aware of the circumstances in which he lives and from awareness, enabling him to make the most of those circumstances. Whichever way one acquires education, it is not free or cheap: money is involved.
Poverty has created such a gap that people prefer illiteracy and are managing to cage the African child so that he is incapable of many things. Poverty has caused many people today to listen to their children, especially the boys, dedicate themselves to the trades instead of sending them to school. Some parents also prefer to send their sons to agriculture and marry girls because they see this as more beneficial than the education they can acquire.
An educated person is expected to acquire skills such as literacy and numeracy and the ability to perform various vocations using their hands. He is also expected to be useful to himself and his society and to contribute particularly positively to the growth of that society.
With the current trend of the formal school system, the number of African children who do not attend school is alarming. The wealthy few among us have taken the system as their status symbol, and when they perceive a challenge from simple aid, private schools become the most preferred, subjecting public schools to perpetual decline.
Most of the African child population is between the ages of 0 and 22 years. In fact, the child has to go from preschool age through the different levels of the formal educational system until completing the first level of tertiary education. By the time he completes his first level of tertiary education, the person has become a full adult and therefore it will no longer be appropriate to refer to him as a child.
In Nigeria, for example, the government has taken different steps to balance and empower children through mass literacy, but the effort has not borne fruit. However, the imbalance in the development of the country’s education system between the northern and southern parts contributes to considerable debate in the Nigerian education system. While one part of the geographic constituency believes that education is necessary and could do anything to empower their children, the other part depends solely and heavily on the government for the education of their children, which increases the chances of educating children as expected.
Although funding is a crucial factor in providing the necessary facilities needed in our quest to educate our children, it is not the only factor, or even the most basic. Below are some other factors that militate against African early childhood education.
1. Facilities: Insufficient learning facilities pose a great threat to early childhood education. The lack of classrooms, laboratories, workshops, libraries, teaching materials and other buildings at all levels can hinder early childhood education. In addition, the lack of maintenance of the existing facilities also contributes to the problem of early childhood education in Africa.
2. Workers: Shortage of teachers and other school workers, more specially trained, who can handle important works as the need arises. Basic subjects like Physical Sciences, Languages, Technical and Vocational need qualified teachers who can handle them, but in most schools they are lacking. In some places where there are teachers, their employers abandon them to work in hostile environments, making their jobs so difficult that they are forced to leave teaching for greener pastures in public and private services, because for them, the educational good is not providing them with satisfactory rewards and no one wants to be a teacher today. Educating the African child becomes a waste of time and resources when schools lack skilled teachers and workers.
3. Discipline — With serious disciplinary problems in all facets of our educational system, achieving a quality education for the African child is a mirage. Absenteeism, strikes, riot crimes, bad exam practice and even murder affect children’s education in Africa. In most cases, teachers lack the necessary motivation and therefore deny their employers their full commitment to duty, showing low morale for jobs. In fact, everyone concerned is guilty of disciplinary problems: teachers, students, educational planners, and administrators.
4. Administration. The constant changes in the formulation and execution of policies have occasionally been cited as one of the problems of education today. The continuity and stability of the African child in education are seriously affected.
5. Economy — The current economic situation is placing heavy financial burdens on many parents in the course of their children’s education.
6. Parental and Community Responsibilities: Parents and other community members have shirked their responsibilities with regard to the education of their wards. With this kind of ugly development, educating the African child will continue to be a burden and an impossible task.
However, there is hope in sight if the government comes to the rescue. However, our attitudes towards education must change, so that we all see it in its basic objective of preparing the mind for responsible citizenship. With this, educating the African child will not only be possible, but a great success.